


Little Pistol

by Violet_Witch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexuality, Character Study, F/M, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, POV Second Person, Repression, and a little on purpose for the ending, but mostly just because I can't remember it, trigger warnings in the notes, you know why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29189025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violet_Witch/pseuds/Violet_Witch
Summary: This is what it has always meant to be Dean Winchester: you sleep with a gun tucked under your pillow. Like the princess and the pea, you could guess make and model just from the way it feels against your cheek. You drive until the road blurs in front of you, and then you drive some more. You’re mesmerized by the buttery yellow headlights passing by in the other direction, and you think sometimes what it would be like to drift into them.The memory of a boy’s hand, curved soft along the line of your cheek and reverent like you might as well be a prayer book is inconsequential. It is not carved into your bones like the urge to defend. It is not integral or necessary, so it does not exist. Not as far as you’re concerned.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Little Pistol

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the majority of this hell show years ago, so this fic is a little lacking in plot detail, but I did my best to portray Dean's emotional journey/growth throughout (supplemented by the Good Supernatural That Lives In My Head). And, there's gonna be a minute toward the end where you doubt me, but don't worry, I got you. The happy ending is promised.
> 
> The title is from a song by Mother Mother, and finally, the trigger warnings: suicidal thoughts/ideation, references to child abuse, unhealthy relationship with alcohol, unhealthy relationship with sex, references to sex, canon typical depiction of faith/religious themes/Christianity.

The first time you let a boy touch you, he makes you regret it. Not the boy—certainly not Alex who was sweet as pie and kissed each of your freckles like they were something precious—but _John_.

You weren’t stupid enough to get caught, but something must have tipped him off. The way you walked, or talked, or glanced to the side. A smile that lingered in the wrong place or a shifty answer to a straightforward question. _Something_.

At first, you figured you were just being paranoid. John had always been prone to his _moods_ , and he’d never needed a reason to look at you like that before, but it feels different this time. More damning. Maybe he’s just been thinking about Mary again.

You manage to hold onto that hope until your seventeenth birthday. _It’s a present,_ he says as he pushes a bag of weapons and a slim file into your arms. _To celebrate you becoming a man._ You swallow the part of you that wanted to celebrate that with him and do your best to ease into the mindset of a killer.

(It’s getting easier and easier every time. Soon, you don’t think you’ll have to ease into it at all. Soon, whatever is left of the person you were before Mom’s death will be gone, and the hunt will be all that’s left. This isn’t a fear, it is a prophecy.)

You read the file on the side of the road thirty minutes out of town, and it makes your blood run cold. _It’s a coincidence_ , you think. But it’s not. And you know that. 

By the time you’re covered in grave dirt from the excavation of two corpses that died for faith (to the Father, of all things) and love ( _SammySammySammy (Alex)_ ), you think that it would have hurt less if he’d just put a revolver on the table and asked if you were feeling lucky.

 _A salt and burn isn’t difficult,_ you think as you tie off the bandage with your teeth, after. You just got distracted.

(The mission briefing put it in such simple terms. Two nuns who killed themselves to escape persecution for loving one another. A straightforward death that made straightforward ghosts.

You’ve heard a lot of sob stories over the years, and they’ve stopped getting to you (you’ve made them stop getting to you) but this one feels like someone’s reached inside your chest and pulled out your bleeding heart to see if it was as pathetic as they suspected. It feels like blood in your mouth, on your skin— _everywhere Alex touched you_. It doesn’t make you cry, but it makes you shake. The sort of tremor that could get you killed on a hunt.

They were buried separately, but before you burn their bones, you move them into one grave. They deserve at least that much, you think.)

You leave blood in the motel sink and when you get back, you think you see a glint of something like satisfaction when John spots the bandage on your arm. He doesn’t comment on how sloppy you were, just claps you on the back and congratulates you on the success of your first solo hunt.

(This time, he made you regret it. Next time, you aren’t sure you’ll live to.)

By the end of the week the whole school knows you got your hand up Jenny’s skirt in the back of her car after the football game.

* * *

That was years ago. You’re older now, and you’ve had your hand up a lot of skirts, but you’ve never let a boy get close enough to count your freckles again.

Sammy is gone, but at least you know where. John is gone, and you can guess which state he’s in. Every time he checks in to see if you’re still kicking, it feels like he’s tugging on the end of your leash.

This is hardly the first time you’ve been alone in your life—John sent you away plenty for misbehaving as a kid—but it’s the first time you’ve felt something close enough to freedom that you get this idea. This stupid, dangerous idea that shines through you like rays of sunlight glinting through a beer bottle, and it makes you think that this time, he’d never have to know. That no one would. In this city, you are anonymous. You could wander into the right kind of bar, flash the right kind of smile, and never bring it back to your motel. Who’d be there to stop you?

But then your phone rings, and it’s too late. He knew last time. He would know this time.

Every time, it feels like a knife twisting just a little further in your rib cage. And look, you have a high pain tolerance, but even you know when it’s best to cut your losses, so you seal up the cracks in your chest with something dark and sticky that stops any more sunlight from getting in. You lock up the dangerous ideas that can only get you hurt, and you forget about them.

As simple as that.

* * *

Tomorrow morning, you won’t remember most of this. You won’t remember who moved first, or how you got from the bar to her apartment, or even her name.

Here’s what you will remember: Her skin was soft beneath your palms and she arched into your touch like she needed it. She used your hair to steer you where she wanted you most, and when you got there, the sounds she made were beautiful. When it was over, she curled into you and fell asleep on your shoulder like it was easy. Like you weren’t even dangerous.

A miracle: You fell asleep too. Deep and dreamless like you haven’t managed since you were a kid.

You know John wouldn’t approve of you sleeping around on the job, but he always sounded proud when he called you a lady killer, so you think maybe this is okay. As long as it’s after the job is done, as long as you never see her again, this is okay. You’re allowed to have this.

By the time you’ve finished the next job, you’re already craving it again.

* * *

You grieve your father, once, twice, three times before the fucker decides to really stay dead. He says goodbye this time and everything, but you still can’t quite believe he’s gone. Not really.

Sammy gets roughed up on a hunt, and you lock yourself in the bathroom with the shower turned all the way up to drown out the deafening sound of your heartbeat. You can’t tell if you’re scared for your brother or of your failure. You watch him wince around bruises and picture the patchwork of them littered across your own skin. Where they belong. If you could take them from him, you would. If your father were alive to give them to you, he would.

* * *

Your father is gone, except for all the ways that he isn’t. He’s gone, except he’s still _inside_ you. He’s still living in the army-straight line of your shoulders, the crease between your brows, and the cold steady _threat_ in the lines of your hands.

You are shaped in his image, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’ve tried slumping your shoulders to look less threatening, shortening your gait, dipping your chin, but in the end gravity always reasserts itself and you are always a predator. You are always what he made you.

With one exception.

You do not have your father’s smile. You have his car and his weapons and his last name, but your grin is easy and childish. It sparks with immature joy at dumb jokes, beautiful women, and good food. You know pleasure when it’s placed in front of you, and you refuse to scare it away. It is a small defiance, but these days you are built from those. The only parts of you that exist are those shaped by him, and those shaped because of him.

* * *

Let’s talk about Sam.

Sam Winchester, your baby brother. The one who got all the brains (and most of the hair). Who read books and wanted to go to school and gave his heart to a girl he met in college like it could be that simple. Sam who had Dad’s love, if not his trust. His adoration, if not his respect. Sam who was never soft—not really—but he was something like it, by Winchester standards.

And maybe you hate him, a little. After all, you always took Dad’s side in arguments, didn’t you? You never supported his college dreams—hell, you might have been worse than Dad about telling him to give up on that shit and embrace the life. You knew Dad liked him best, and surely that’s what sent you over the edge.

You tell yourself that, sometimes. Here’s the truth:

You adore him. There is no dignified term for how you felt the first time you held your baby brother with the big brown eyes and the just-long-enough-to-curl-at-the-ends hair. You would have taken a bullet for him long before your body was big enough to even stop a bullet. And the reason you fought his decision to go to college wasn’t because you were jealous or trying to hold him back, it was because you were scared of losing him. Of not being there to protect him. You’re willing to admit it made you a little crazy, but you’re not willing to regret it.

You love your (not baby anymore, not really) brother with every scrap of your being. It is carved into your bones and written all over your bleeding heart:

_Protect Sam Winchester._

And yeah, he’s a total nerd, but you love even that. Sam wants what normal people want: a home, a family, a life. It scares you that you can’t give him that, so sometimes you’re a dick about it, but it gives you hope. Hope that one day, this will be over for him. He’ll weather the storm, and on the other side of it he’ll have options. He’ll have safety.

You already know you’re doomed. It doesn’t matter how many monsters you kill or how many times you save the world, you weren’t built for a normal life. You will hunt until you die, and you will die on a hunt. You know this.

But for Sammy, for your _wonderfulsmartperfect_ baby brother, there’s hope.

* * *

Okay so you’re drunk. Like, the bottle’s got a hole in it levels of drunk. _Karaoke_ levels of drunk. Drunk enough to think about fuckin’ Freud.

You’re not a philosopher (thank god for that) but as you let a girl feel you up through the fabric of your too tight shirt on a sloppy sort of dance floor, you think maybe there’s something too his fucked up sex theories. You think, with a startling amount of coherence for someone in your state, that you certainly have an affinity for fucking beautiful women who dissolve like dew when the sun rises. Women that make you feel human and wanted.

And then you’re being pulled away from the dance floor to somewhere more intimate, and you stop thinking all together.

* * *

This is you on the eve of your trip to Hell: fractured, bloodied, _fucking relieved._

Relieved because it’s you and not Sammy. Because it is years too late, but maybe russian roulette is a game built on patience, and you are just tired enough to convince yourself that the fires of eternal damnation will finally be enough to make you feel warm.

Sammy will miss you—you can see the truth of it every time he looks at you—but you know he’ll be alright. He’s built for carrying on in a way you are not. He will carve a life for himself in this dark world you’re leaving for him, and, eventually, he’ll forget you.

It’s not quite fulfilment, dying at twenty six and change, but it also sort of _is_. You’re his big brother, your purpose has always been to protect him. You were born for it really. And it’s not like there’s an alternative. Sammy will live on without you, but you’d never make it without him.

Part of you wishes you had more time together (time like this, without John standing between you) but most of you is just ready.

It helps that you’ve always known you were going to die like this. At the hands of something unnatural for the sake of your family. There’s pride in that, you think. More pride than any other way you’ve considered going out, at least.

* * *

Every day you’re down there you ask yourself the same question: _Was it worth it?_

Every day your answer is yes. Even after Alastair breaks you on his table, your answer is still yes.

* * *

When you wake up in a darkness so complete you can only assume your sight’s gone, your first thought is _sensory deprivation torture_ and your second is _how long can I last before it drives me insane?_ The scariest part is how calm you feel about both these things.

Then comes the scramble, and the lighter, and suddenly the inky void becomes a very narrowly confined space, and just like that, whatever meager amount of air you had with you in your grave vanishes. You can’t breath. Can’t _think_ . Alastair was an artist with a ball hammer and a spike, but he’s never branched out to _this_ before. Never snooped inside your head and made a cage of your fears. You didn’t even know that was a thing he could do.

It’s not a fear that makes sense (except for how it _does_ ), but your lungs have contracted under an iron band, and your muscles have gone tight with adrenaline. It isn’t a tactical move when you strike out at the lid above you. There is no room in your panic for concern about the suffocating mound of dirt that’s about to come pouring over your head (into your nose, into your mouth, down your throat, packing tight into your lungs). There is only the spasms of your muscles as you lash out at the barrier between you and freedom.

The wood is hard, it was built to last, but like all things, it breaks in the end. The dirt does come pouring in, but you do not choke on it. You just start climbing your way up.

For minutes, you gain ground inch by inch. Your nails tear and your chest sings, but you keep going. You don’t know when you realize that you’re not in Hell anymore, but it is not the shock it should be. You are too consumed with your panic to care what plain of existence you’re on. You don’t even wonder what could have possibly brought you back.

By the time your fingers break the surface, it’s a second miracle that you’re even still alive. You pull yourself the rest of the way out, gulping down great lungfuls of sweet air as you do. You’re coated in a film of blood and grave dirt, but even that smells comfortingly familiar when compared to the damp rot of the coffin you’ve just escaped. Quietly, like the tide retreating from shore, your panic recedes. When you tilt your head up, the sun warms your cheeks and it feels almost gentle.

Gentle in a way you do not deserve after what you did.

You turn to the freshly turned earth you have just emerged out of (your nightmares made real, a slow death with Alastair waiting on the other side) and you consider putting yourself back in it. You’ve killed more monsters than you can count for sins far lesser than the ones you’ve now committed.

If you were a better man, you’d do it, but the pull of _SammySammySammy_ is stronger. You start walking.

* * *

_Castiel._

A name. It means something to you. Like a chord plucked inside your chest that rings through your rib cage and reverberates in your bones. It shakes you. It terrifies you.

_Castiel._

Nothing comes for free. You know this, and surely your miraculous savior does too. Your life isn’t worth much, but you can’t imagine it was easy to retrieve, so what does he want in return? Best guess: what everyone does. He wants a weapon in his hand.

_Castiel._

Good things don’t just happen. Good things are the set up for a punchline, and you’re always the one getting punched— _always_. That’s okay. You can take it. You just need to keep it contained, keep Sammy out of it. But what if that’s not possible anymore?

You’re back, but you almost wish you weren’t.

* * *

This is what it has always meant to be Dean Winchester: you sleep with a gun tucked under your pillow. Like the princess and the pea, you could guess make and model just from the way it feels against your cheek. You drive until the road blurs in front of you, and then you drive some more. You’re mesmerized by the buttery yellow headlights passing by in the other direction, and you think sometimes what it would be like to drift into them.

The memory of a boy’s hand, curved soft along the line of your cheek and reverent like you might as well be a prayer book is inconsequential. It is not carved into your bones like the urge to defend. It is not integral or necessary, so it does not exist. Not as far as you’re concerned. 

You are damaged and bleeding, but still strong enough to stand. You are always afraid, but always brave too, and love is only as real to you as the hilt of the knife you use to protect your brother. There is an emptiness in you that can never be filled. Not with food or booze or sex. It is gaping and every day you think it gets a little bigger. Eats up a little more of your flesh and bone. Soon, you’ll be nothing but a void on two legs.

* * *

_Castiel._

More than just a name, now. A face and a body and _wings_. He looks up at you with wide eyes and speaks of faith as if it is something to be treasured. He admonishes you gently as if you were a misguided, but endearing child. He smells like ozone.

Your mind latches onto that fact. Ozone and something else. Something that makes your brain go a little cross eyed, like there’s a blanket laying heavy on a sense you do not have. He looks about as human as a monster can, but he doesn’t feel it. He feels ancient and powerful and holy. He feels like an angel.

_This angel touched you._

The mark of it is still on your arm, raised and angry red. Your mind skirts along the implications of that before recoiling like a hand jerked away from a hot stove. There is one thing here that matters, and it is not the blue of his eyes or the shape of the mouth that is not even technically his. It is not the unwavering faith written into every crease of him or the way he looks at you.

No, none of that matters. Only what he wants from you.

* * *

It will take several weeks and several more bottles of whiskey for you to overcome your repulsion at the idea of thinking about those implications. Here is the result:

He _remade_ you, atom by atom. Built you from the ground up in a way that goes far beyond anything you ever could have imagined. You look at yourself in the mirror, and after a moment’s thought, you strip. That freckle— _he’s seen that._ The birthmark on the inside of your knee— _he put that there._ The knife scar further up— _that was a conscious decision._

You wonder why he did that. Why he left you your scars.

You’re walking a thin line between wasted and alcohol poisoning (it’s okay, you’ve walked it before) when you finally let yourself imagine the rest. You take the angle of the handprint he has marked on your arm, and you extrapolate outward to how he must have held you as he fought his way out of Hell. You think about his words.

_I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition._

Listen, you are not a damsel. You are a soldier and a defender. You’d prefer to do the saving rather than be saved, but something about this—about your knight in shining grace—makes you shiver. Your current state of undress has nothing to do with how naked it makes you feel to have been saved by him.

You don’t want to owe him something for your life, but it’s easier to think that it is debt driving you toward him rather than any other, less quantifiable reasons.

* * *

Here’s the thing: you _like_ women.

You like the feel of them under your hands, wrapped around your waist, in your arms. You like their curves. You like how their bodies are so _soft_. You like tangling your fingers in their long hair and tracing the lines of them in broad strokes. You like when they lean into you, letting you take their weight. You like it even more when their long nails dig into your back, and (you’ll never admit this out loud) you like it when they push you around a little.

(You like the way they make you feel. Like you are wanted. Like you are beautiful.)

You _like_ women, but you’ve never let yourself love one.

(That’s a lie—you did, once. She burned on a ceiling.)

* * *

You’ve come back to life with two new certainties:

  1. You deserve to die more than ever.
  2. You are so fucking scared of dying.



You’ve never been particularly keen on the idea really. Utter and complete lack of self worth isn’t the same thing as _wanting_ to end it all, but this is a new fear. It’s strong and primal and fierce where it used to be lazy and content to only rear its head in particularly extreme situations.

You want it to be something noble. You want to believe this truth sprung from a renewed lust for life that will fill you with purpose for the rest of your days. It didn’t. You just can’t go back down there.

You are alive now, but you can still feel their blood on your hands. You can hear their screams in your ears—their begging. Some of them, some of them looked like Sammy. You know that was on purpose.

You’re not sure if it’s worse to think that you left something behind down there or that you brought something back, but either way you are not the same.

* * *

It doesn’t occur to you that maybe you’ll go up.

* * *

Angels: real, and fucking assholes.

God: real (?), an even _bigger_ asshole.

Destiny: nope. Not a chance. This is where you draw the fucking line.

Team free will was mostly something you said out of spite in the heat of the moment, but you weren’t wrong. It’s all well and good if the Father who may or may not actually exist (you wouldn’t exactly be surprised if the entire feathery populace of Heaven has been delusional the whole time) has a plan for you, but you’ll be damned if you’re going to follow it. If God wants you to be his dancing monkey, then he can get his lazy absentee ass off his pearly throne and come tell you himself, because you _refuse_. 

You _did not_ spend so much goddamn time mentally shoving the voice of your father into a box, and then crushing that box with a baseball bat every time it pops up just for you to now accept some other Father and all His expectations. Nope. Nu-uh. Not gonna happen. _You_ are writing the story, nobody else. If it goes to shit, then it goes to shit, but it will damn well be on your terms.

This determination is like nothing you’ve felt in a long time. It is anger, pure and simple. The sort you’ve rarely had the luxury to indulge in for more than a few moments at a time. (The sort that scares you, because it’s so close to becoming like his.) It burns in your gut with the intensity of a dying star, and you think this might just be what it feels like to finally snap.

It is one thing to think that all the shitty things that happened to you were just cosmic bad luck, it is quite another to know that they were intentional. To know that there’s a higher power out there watching over it all, and for some reason he decided to fuck you specifically over.

And, perhaps in a moment of weakness, your anger does not end with you. It turns itself outward and casts its protective wrath in defense of your brother. Of your family. Of Cas.

Cas, who is no longer Castiel, angel of the lord in your mind, but something else. Some _one_ else.

Cas who delivered this message to you with more faith than you’ve ever held for anything in your life. Who takes his orders without complaint. Who knows he’s a grunt, and doesn’t mind because he believes his Father cares for him.

Seeing that faith makes you ache. Makes you want to reach out and touch him. To lay a steadying hand on his shoulder. To shake him and shake him until he sees that he’s being _used_. That the purpose he was built for is nothing but the whim of a cruel being who doesn’t care about him or anyone else except itself.

But you can’t do that. Cas isn’t your responsibility, and you doubt there is any universe in which he would welcome your touch. So you harden your bleeding heart, and you turn away. Not because you want to, but because you can see no other option.

 _He’ll be okay,_ you tell yourself. You desperately hope that you’re not dooming him.

* * *

Sometimes, you miss the feel of skin sliding against yours. You miss having someone to hold at night. You miss the soft, breathy tones of a woman utterly convinced she loves you, just for a few hours.

You miss it, but you’re not quite enough of an asshole to go seeking it while you’ve got your brother in tow. You still flirt. Still wink at waitresses and smile at the odd particularly beautiful bystander on a case. But you don’t let it get any further than that.

Sam wouldn’t stop you if you did, and you don’t think he’d make much fuss over it either, but every time you picture going home with someone, it’s followed immediately by a picture of Sammy, alone in your motel room.

You know Sam’s a big boy now and he can handle being on his own for a few hours (might even appreciate the peace of a room to himself) but that does not stop the tight-sinking feeling of your gut when you think of it. Does not stop the worry.

Sam would be fine if you spent a night otherwise occupied, but what if you didn’t come back in the morning? How long would it take for him to start worrying? At what point would his mind start to turn to contingencies, to backup plans. To counting what money you left him, and calculating the number of days he can stretch the groceries he has to survive until you come back. If you come back.

 _That was never Sammy_ , you remind yourself every time. _That was me._

But you return to your motel room— _to Sam_ —every night anyway.

* * *

Here is an ugly truth: you believe in free will, but you’ll be fucking damned if you’re willing to let the people you love use theirs to put themselves in danger.

You don’t care how greedy it is, you’ve got the monopoly on death wishes in this family. If you had it your way, everyone else would walk around in bubble wrap—if they got to walk around at all. You’d prefer them in hermetically sealed, demon-monster-angel warded bunkers until the end of time.

Here is another: that’s not an option.

Because you know what it is to be loved like shackles around your wrists. To be loved like a possession (although you were _used_ , not _guarded_ ). You know that there wouldn’t be a point to protecting them like that, because they’d wither. And—even more than you want them safe—you want them happy. You want them free and themselves. Sometimes, that means they aren’t safe.

Both of these truths exist inside you. Mostly, you do what you know is the right thing, but sometimes the other wolf wins and you sacrifice yourself for people who never asked you to.

* * *

When Cas hits you, it terrifies you, but not for the reasons it should.

You know, somewhere deep in the depths of yourself, that you should be scared for your life. That Cas, no matter what complicated things you may feel for each other (if there’s anything complicated at all on his end), is not your friend. Not even human. He is a being of divine power, and he could kill you at any time without lifting a finger. You can’t rule out the possibility that he _will_ kill you. 

But here is the inexplicable thing: You aren’t scared of him hurting you. Not even when your lip is bleeding and you’re on your knees telling him to _do it._

No, what scares you is this:

He rebelled for you. The little toy soldier at heaven’s every beck and call rebelled, and he says it was _for you._ For this. For humanity.

You know a thing or two about Fathers. About doubting them. About how that doubt starts with the smallest of seeds, but it grows. It settles somewhere deep inside you and it expands, pushing at your lungs and your heart indiscriminately to make room for how utterly it’s going to fuck you over.

You planted that seed in Cas, and now he hates you for it.

A secret: You don’t want him to hate you.

If you’d seen the hairline fractures ghosted across his skin sooner—and you should have from the start; angels aren’t supposed to look at humans the way he looked at you in that barn—you could have done better. You could have helped him. If you were better, you could be helping him now, but… _but_.

This guilt that spreads inside you like poison is an old friend. It waltzes in without knocking and lays at your feet its many familiar gifts, chief among them a stupid, impossible wish that you were better. That you were someone he could count on, someone who could have caught him when he fell.

Because Cas deserves the absolute best humanity has to offer, and that sure as hell isn’t you, but _god_ you wish it were.

(For the first time in a long time you think about being sixteen. About a boy who cradled your face and how you couldn’t return the favor because you were scared to touch him with your rough and calloused palms. Because he deserved better than to have the texture of his skin catalogued beside the grain of a gun grip in your mind.)

Cas terrifies you because you know you’ll never be good enough for him—but you want to. And that wanting might just tear you apart.

* * *

Let’s talk about Bobby.

Bobby who’s tough as nails and takes no shit. Who had a wife and two beautiful daughters. Who lost them, not to a ceiling on fire, but to something just as terrible. Bobby who never had any sons to turn into weapons, but took in two boys all the same. Bobby with the same tragic backstory as John, who taught you how to play baseball and how to cook a meal in a kitchen with more than just a microwave. Bobby who called you an idjit and smacked your hands away from the beer until you were 21, even though John never kept track of his own alcohol.

Bobby who you’ve always seen as a person first, a hunter second, and an authority figure last. The exact opposite order of John.

Bobby who’s always seen you as a son first, a hunter second, and a Winchester last. The exact opposite order of John.

Here’s the thing about hunters _(Winchesters)_ : love is more dangerous than any monster. A monster can only kill you, but love is what can break you. When you’re a hunter, love is a secret best kept close to the chest. It’s something that must play out in the creases, scribbled in the margins. Love is when you think of Bobby first and John second when you’re asked the name of your father. Love is when you call him in a panic, and know he will calm you down. It is every unthinking moment of trust, and every intentional action of devotion.

And maybe, just maybe, a small part of love is knowing without a doubt that all these dangerous traitorous things inside you are reciprocated. Maybe, just a little, it’s knowing that Bobby would do for you all the things you’d do for him and more.

Maybe love is as simple as caring for each other.

* * *

Okay, okay, you can accept that answer, except for the fact that it changes everything.

Bobby wasn’t written into your bones like Sammy, but you learned to love him anyway. Bobby isn’t family by blood, but he’s still _family_ , and as far as you’re concerned, that is the dearest anyone can be to your heart.

He tells you, ‘ _family don’t end in blood_ ,’ and you believe him.

He tells you, ‘ _family don’t end in blood_ ,’ but yours just seems to keep dying.

Family don’t end in blood— _except for when it does._

* * *

Lisa isn’t the same person you remember from a decade ago, but then again, neither are you.

The Lisa you remember from ten years ago was bold, and rebellious, and running from something—not that you stuck around to find out what—but this Lisa has grown up. Now she is just as strong-willed, but she is steadier. She would do anything for her son (and, you think, probably already has).

Really, is it any surprise you fall in love with her for real this time?

(It is easy to believe, for a moment, that you love a person when they lay their head on your chest after sex. It is easy to bury your nose in their hair and run your fingers along their skin and believe that it is more than just chemicals. It is a belief you squash beneath your boot every time it rears its head—but always in the morning. The crazy things that run around in your head when you’re half asleep won’t hurt anyone.)

Here is the truth: You went to Lisa broken. You didn’t really expect her to take you in. You just thought—well, you didn’t, but—that Sam wanted you to have a normal life, and normal people have friends, right? (Friends who don’t own more weapons than clothes, that is.) So you go to Lisa. You tell her the truth, and she lets you stay.

(You should have guessed she was crazy—she slept with _you_.)

You don’t talk about it. Not the hunting, not the fact that it’s been a month and you’re still sleeping on her couch, not when you start sleeping in her bed instead.

Every night, you hold her. In the mornings you cook her breakfast, and then you go to work. You spend the weekends with Ben, working on the Impala. And you’re actually pretty good at it. Playing house like this.

(Here’s the thing about Ben: he looks like you and talks like you and is in the age range to maybe just be yours— _but isn’t._ Definitely isn’t. And yet, he looks at you like you’re his fucking father or something and—

Well, they’re going to have to invent a new word for hate because you looked at John with that much trust in your eyes once too, and he _left_ you. For days. He put a gun in your hand, and you accepted that as okay because he told you that it was, but Ben’s hands are too small, too soft _—like yours were—_ and just thinking about putting a gun in them makes your stomach heave.

You have never hated John quite so much as you do when you look at Ben.)

You sink into this life. It is warmth and comfort and steadiness. Land after years at sea. Blue skies after a hurricane. It does not beat you down, or cut you with its edges. It is not slippery, constantly threatening to send you sprawling. There is no blood under your fingernails, no dirt in your hair. Your weapons are neatly stowed away, near to the point of gathering dust.

This is a life of family meals and time spent together for no other reason than being with each other. It has no need of all nighters spent researching the latest threat to humanity, or hours upon hours spent driving to wherever the monsters are. You haven’t seen the inside of a motel room in months, and that’s the first time you can say that since you were four.

And Lisa—Lisa who you always knew was beautiful, but now who you also know is kind and stubborn and likes dancing, but isn’t particularly good at it. Who hates cooking, but doesn’t mind the dishes. Who has a spot, just behind her left ear, where she likes to be kissed. Not even as a sex thing, it just makes her giggle and sigh into you. Lisa who does not mind that your hands are calloused. Who knows all of you and still welcomed you into her life, into her home, into her bed.

You aren’t afraid to hold her. She doesn't feel like dew beneath your fingers, destined to evaporate at any moment. She is not glass that will shatter at your touch. She is a woman made of flesh and blood who loves you. Who trusts you.

And—and you love her to. You can feel it. A throb in your chest, a brightness in your head. At one of the lowest moments in your life, Lisa gives you light, and finally, you recognize that for what it is.

She is not written into your bones. She does not beat through you like your very life blood, but it is still _love._ Still fondness and affection and the urge to protect.

And sometimes you fuck up. Sometimes you say the wrong thing or retreat so far into yourself that she has to go chasing after you, but she tells you that it’s okay. She looks at you with eyes filled with sympathy, and she says that this kind of love is a skill, and all skills take time to master. She says you are learning, and that’s what matters. She glances to the side, and you think that maybe she had to learn once too.

You spend a year of your life loving Lisa (more—she does not leave your heart when she leaves your life) and you think it could be enough. You think that this is something like contentment, even with the void still in your chest. You think that this is a beautiful life—one where you could grow old and die of natural causes. You think that maybe this is at last a family that won’t die on you.

You think a lot of things, but you are Dean Winchester. You are a weapon, and a shield, and a hunter. This is beautiful, but it isn’t for you. Lisa can love you despite your calloused hands, but not because of them. Not really.

Ultimately, no matter how much you learn to love each other, you are poison to her. She will burn on a ceiling for the crime of loving you, and her son will grow up with a gun in his hand—or not at all.

You have always known love is sacrifice, but it has never made you feel as bitter as it does when you leave her.

* * *

Part of you has to know that Cas and Sam are not equatable, but to you, that doesn’t matter.

Love is one of many things that John only taught you from one angle. It is a duty you take up to someone. A weight you agree to carry. And in that way, your love for Sam and your love for Cas are nearly indistinguishable. 

Bobby tried to teach you something different, in his own gruff way, but it never quite stuck, did it? You didn’t know what to do with his care. You don’t know how to be anything other than the guardian in a relationship. You were, after all, more than just Sam’s brother. You were half a mother and father to him too. 

(Cas put you together atom by atom, and you never figured out what to do with that act of tenderness either.)

But, your family is getting bigger. Not on purpose. You don’t mean to care for these people that are just more bodies for you to burn one day—but you do. And with each new member you grudgingly add, love gets a little easier. A little less like shackles and a little more like kindness.

This is what Bobby and Lisa couldn’t teach you. What they tried so hard to show you about the depths of your own heart. And it kills you that it is only because of them that you’ve reached this point, and neither of them is here to see it.

That’s becoming a common theme in your life.

* * *

What you say: _You’re like a brother to me._

What you mean: _I love you. I love you in every way I know how. With my bones, with my armor—with my guns if I have to. I want to protect you._ **_Let_ ** _me protect you. Whatever it is that you are fighting, I can take it. If you let me in, I promise I won’t quit on you. Not ever. I will spend every day for the rest of my life proving how much I love you, if only you_ **_let_ ** _me._

What he says: _You’re just a human._

What he means: 

* * *

Let’s talk about Charlie.

Charlie, who slots so quickly into the role of your little sister that you don’t even have time to hate yourself first. Who can make even more pop culture references in a sentence than you, and who lights up every time you laugh at her jokes. Who smiles like the sun, and commits crimes that fly so far above your head, that you’re left stupid and grinning. Charlie whose last name probably isn’t actually Bradbury (but you’d give her Winchester in a heartbeat if she asked). Charlie who prefers women, but calls Cas dreamy anyway with a glance your way full of benign curiosity.

Charlie who has you taking the bullets you’d normally dodge. Letting parts of yourself normally kept under such careful control rise to the surface because they make her smile. Because you don’t even have to explain them to her, she just accepts whatever you offer.

She makes you feel lighter. You don’t have to earn her affection or split yourself open for her love, you just have to be you. Whatever that means.

In another universe, the two of you met in college. You went to comicon together as Batman and Batwoman (maybe you bullied Sam into being Robin), and on the weekends, you role played as knights, always dueling for the princess’ hand (and maybe, just maybe in this alternate universe you would let her win more often than not and soothe the sting of your loss with the stable boy instead).

Charlie is light and air and everything your life could have been _if only if only if only…_

Charlie is a chink in your armor, and eventually, she does what weaknesses do. She breaks your heart.

* * *

There is a hunger inside you. It is starved of something vital, and it begs you to feed it. When dad was around, the hunger was cold and heavy and it kept you sharp. When Sammy was around, the hunger was dull and quiet and it never bothered you much. When they both left, it overwhelmed you.

Hunting didn’t to shit except momentarily distract you from it. Booze was the same, and so was every other remedy you could think of. Every remedy but one.

You are too tired to keep pretending you don’t know why sex makes the hunger go away.

Here is the truth you can’t admit until you’re weary to the bone: the act itself is your least favorite part of taking a woman to bed. The thing you crave—the thing you _need_ —is the way they run their fingers through your hair after. The touches they press along every inch of your body with careful attentiveness. Here, there is no violence. There is no threat in their hands on your face. They murmur kindness and affection into your skin, and you soak it up like a plant.

There is a hunger inside you. It is there because your mother is dead and your father turned away from you. It is there because you had to earn so much of the love you’ve received through blood and violence. It is there because you’re only worth as much as you can kill, and you need to be reminded that not everyone thinks that. There is a hunger inside you because nobody ever fed it, and you don’t have the strength to feed it yourself.

* * *

Let’s talk about Baby.

Baby, the car that was once your father’s and is now yours. The singular point of constancy and stability in your life that is so severely lacking in both. You know Baby better than you know yourself. You could take her engine apart blind folded, and you could put it back together in your sleep. You’ve spent hours upon hours learning every nook and cranny of her chassis, every secret of her engine. You know the pattern her tires leave in the dirt and the exact shade of paint you have to buy to touch her up. You know the secrets carved into her by small hands, and the history sprawled in every corner of her trunk.

You take care of Baby with all the tenderness you never managed to give yourself. In every version of your future, she is with you, and you never learned restraint around her (not like you did with everything else), so you fawn over her like a proud father and coo like a doting mother. For Baby, you’ve always managed to be point blank about your love.

Let’s talk about the car that was your church, but became your home.

How once the hours you spent working on her were hours spent in contemplation and prayer to the only God you were taught to worship: your father. How he was written into her just as surely as you were. How no matter how hard you scrubbed, no volume of soap suds could scrub her clean of his touch.

How you stopped trying to.

Baby was Dad’s, but so were you. Maybe that’s why you love this car so much. It doesn’t remind you of bruises and neglect like so many of John’s things do. It is just home. It is yours more than anything else in this world ever has been—what does it matter that it was his first?

Baby was proof of concept before you ever knew you needed it that you were going to grow beyond him. That no matter how many years after his death it took, you were going to be whole again.

* * *

You wonder when Cas’ vessel truly became _his_ in your eyes. You think it was from the start, and you’re a little ashamed of that.

You wonder what you’d think of his vessel if it was Jimmy Novak behind the wheel instead. Would you still think his eyes are the most striking blue you’ve ever seen? Would you be so intent on memorizing the calluses of his palms if they weren’t the ones that pulled you from Hell? Would his lips look as full if they weren’t _his?_

This is a dangerous line of questioning. These are the sorts of thoughts that lead to straightforward ghosts who cling to each other when you burn them.

It scares you, but this time… this time you don’t do anything about it. You sit, and you stew in your fear, and it’s awful, but you don’t reach for the whiskey, and you don’t head to a bar. When you wake up tomorrow morning, your head won’t ache and there won’t be a stranger in your bed.

That’s not nothing.

* * *

Let’s _—finally—_ talk about Castiel.

Cas, your best friend(?). Your brother(?). You’re _family._ Cas who raised you from perdition and put you back together atom by atom. Who saw every terrible part of you before you even knew his name. Cas who is divine not because he is an angel, but because he is _Cas_ . Cas who knows about bees and doesn’t get metaphors unless you explain them. Cas who fell in love with humanity and looks at you like you’re a part of that. Cas with the broken wings and the strained grace who’s always— _always_ trying to protect someone.

Cas who was a soldier. Who was a weapon and a shield and understands you in ways no one else ever has.

Cas.

You’re in love with him. 

* * *

It’s not that easy.

* * *

You’re in love with Cas, and you do with it the only thing you can. You scribble it into the margins and fold it into the creases. You hold it close to your chest.

Here’s the thing: When you hold something as bright as love so close to your chest, eventually it starts to fill you up. It seeps into the void where the sticky-dark thing used to be, and it fills it with light. With blinding, searing, _painful_ light.

Here’s the thing: You let it.

* * *

Sam comes home from a supply run, and you find him staring in confusion at the fridge. You ask him what the problem is, and in answer he holds up the beer he bought. The beer that proved redundant when he came home to find you hadn’t finished the beer from last week.

You pretend this realization doesn’t make your heart skip a beat.

There are always vegetables in the pantry (for Sammy you say, but you mix them into your stir fry anyway). You tell yourself bacon takes too much time to fry on the mornings you choose to eat an apple instead.

And you’re sleeping. Not for a few hours at a time, but consistently. You have an alarm clock now because your body no longer springs into action on a predictable revolution of four hours. You have an alarm clock, and sometimes you turn it off. Sometimes you don’t get out of bed until noon, and when you do, you choose to walk around in slippers and a bathrobe instead of getting dressed.

You have a favorite coffee mug. You don’t realize you have a favorite coffee mug until Sam tries to drink from it and you slap his hand away, unsure why you suddenly feel so territorial. You’ve never even owned a coffee mug before, and now you’re protective of one.

Baby is still you home, but maybe the Bunker is too. Maybe this is what a home is. Or, rather, maybe you are _making_ this a home.

It’s good. For Sam. For both of you.

You wonder if it’s good for Cas too.

* * *

The bunker is your home, so it makes sense to you that Cas has a room in it. Specifically one right next to yours, although it might have been a little too cruel to put him so close, to put temptation just a few steps away. It’s easy, on the lonely nights you no longer fill with strangers, to forget why you can’t go to him. Why you can’t slip into his bed instead of yours and ask him to hold you. To let you hold him.

You don’t even think he’d turn you away.

Here’s why you don’t: You are so in love with Cas that it makes your teeth ache, but you’ve also hurt him. Again and again. The thought that Cas has ever loved you _—might still love you—_ despite everything you’ve done is _unbearable_. It is worse than the blood on your hands after Hell, worse than all the things about yourself that you’ve tried to wash away with whiskey.

Loving you would hurt Cas, and that— _that_ is unacceptable. 

So you stay in your room, and in the morning, when you are tired of longing for him and weak from denying yourself, you call him sunshine. You give him a mixtape, and catch his gaze for a little too long.

But at night, you stay safely in your own room.

* * *

You’re updating your shit list. God just jumped from existentially your least favorite person, to literally your least favorite person.

You are going to invent new laws of Newtonian physics just so you can put your boot so far up his ass, he tastes it in his all powerful piehole. And you are _not_ going to cry about it. You are going to be angry and righteous, because that’s what keeps you moving. That’s what puts adrenaline in your body and fire in your veins. That’s what keeps the shock, and the hopelessness of an unwinnable fight at bay.

Besides, it’s not like you ever had faith anyway. And if you did, it would have been broken long before now. You learned to pray when you learned angels were real, but let’s be honest, you were only ever praying to one 'him,' and it sure as hell wasn’t God.

Still, it’s sort of stupid, isn’t it? You’ve been rubbing elbows with divinity for years now, and you never gave a shit about it, but you never really stopped searching for faith either. You looked for it in motel rooms and barns. In blood and orders. In Baby’s engine and other people’s beds. And instead you found it in a boy’s hand and an angel’s trench coat.

But it's too late for that now.

* * *

You recognize this.

You recognize the pain in his eyes. The fractured, bloody, _fucking relieved_ look of someone happy to bleed for the people they love. You ask him why it sounds like a goodbye, but you already know the answer. Because it is.

And the thing is, you weren’t supposed to ever be on the receiving end of this look. You aren’t worth dying for, and they’re all supposed to _know_ that, but here he is. Breaking all the rules again. Telling you something that deserves to be said in peace, in comfort, in _safety_ —not in a basement with the weight of death pressing in on all sides and your attention split between him and the door. 

And yet, this is happening.

He tells you everything you’ve ever wanted to hear, and it _hurts_ you. It cuts deep into old wounds, opening them for fresh blood to spill free. This is at once your every dream come true, and your worst nightmare.

And you know what he’s building to. You can feel it coming, and you beg him not to do it, because he’s about to _leave_ you. Because he is admitting to so much pain and hardship and that is _your_ fault. Because you were scared of straight forward ghosts and chinks in your armor.

He smiles at you and it is the saddest he has ever looked. He shoves you out of the way and even as you slam against the wall, you think it was the warmest touch you’ve felt in years. He steps willingly into the arms of his death, and he does it for _you_.

And you watch. You do not stop him. You do not join him.

You just watch.

* * *

You don’t tell Sam. Or Jack, or anyone else. You take his words and you lock them up inside you like you locked the feeling of a boy’s hand cradling your cheek. You shove it away until the work is done, and even then, you do not relax your guard.

Here is the thing about beating God: there is no further room to escalate. Your whole life has been one world ending event after another, always overlapping just enough to give you the sense that when this apocalypse is stopped, another one will be waiting over the horizon.

You don’t feel that now. You feel done.

And Cas doesn’t come back.

A part of you knows that this is an acceptable loss. That one angel for the rest of the world is a good bargain. This is the part of you that might have been able to move on and have a life now that it’s all over.

It isn’t big enough.

You keep hunting, and eventually, it kills you. Just like you always thought it would.

You don’t plan it exactly, but you certainly don’t fight it when the rebar slides through your stomach. You grope blindly through your pain to tell Sammy everything you need him to hear before you slip away, but your mind is really only in one place.

It’s not quite as poetic as laying your bones down in Cas’ grave, but it will have to do. You’re finally ready to face this fear. You’re finally ready to let go and embrace the light.

You close your eyes for the last time.

* * *

Except, that’s not how it happened. _That_ is the universe where John fucking Winchester gets to win, and you’ll be damned if you’re going to have any part in it.

Cas does die, that part is true, but it doesn’t break you. It doesn’t twist you and shake you until you feel like you’re left with only one option. You are not the obedient soldier that once followed in your father’s footsteps.

Cas dies, but you don’t let him stay gone. You set your jaw against the universe that has always tried to beat you down and you say, _Y’know what? Fuck this._ You still don’t tell Sammy, but it’s not because you’re scared, it’s because you’re going to tell Cas first.

You beat Chuck, and you don’t kill him this time either, but you let slip to Charlie (apocalypse edition) that the man responsible for her girlfriend’s disappearance is roaming around, and you can hardly be held responsible for what she does with that information. And this time, when Jack brings everyone back, he starts with his real father.

You don’t know what your face must look like when Cas returns from the Empty and the first thing he sees is you. You know there are tears in your eyes and your voice scratches when you say his name. You know it catches him off guard, brings more confusion to his face than the standard disorientation of an unexpected resurrection.

You don’t kiss him, but only because this has always been about so much more than that. Instead, you pull him into you. You hide your face in his neck and you hang onto him with everything you have. Like you’re trying to pull him into your body.

And Cas hesitates (of course he hesitates, when have you even shown him that this is what’s inside of you?) but after a moment, he wraps his arms around you too. He hugs you back.

And it is then, with his hold on you gaining desperation and the scent of him filling you with a feeling of home that you turn your head to the side and whisper, _I love you too._

He barely has time to look shocked before you’re shoving him into Sam. They are family too, after all, even if your bond is more profound. (You still preen at the memory all these years later.) Over Cas’ shoulder, Sam gives you a look that means so much at once.

You are smiling so wide it hurts, but this is the good kind of hurt. This is the hurt of clean blood clearing out old infections. Of wounds that are going to _heal_ , not fester. This is a hurt that reminds you you’re alive and promises a brighter tomorrow. This is the hurt of someone in love.

* * *

You do kiss him, eventually.

When you get back to the bunker, Sam gets on the phone to call everyone you know to make sure they’re alright, but you don’t join him. You should, but there’s something you need to do first.

You take Cas’ hand and pull him into your room. The door falls shut behind you, and you do not press him against it, but you do not shy away from the thought of doing so either. Instead, you leave your fingers carelessly (oh so very carefully) intertwined with his and cradle his face with your other hand.

He leans into your touch and closes his eyes like he wants to dissolve into you just as badly as you want to absorb him. _Hello Dean,_ he murmurs into your skin. His free hand is resting on your hip. Not keeping you there, just resting. You know it will take time to convince him that you want to be kept, but that’s okay. You’re prepared to spend the rest of your life being very persuasive.

To that end, you grab his attention with a sound that could be his name but feels a lot like another _I love you_ when it crosses your lips. He looks up at you through his eyelashes, and you’re ready to surrender to his sky blue eyes. They are vast and deep, and if wanting to fall into them makes you a sinner, then repentance isn’t worth it.

His voice rumbles like thunder when he asks if you’re going to kiss him. He is unhesitating, but it is unmistakably a question, and you want to hit yourself for putting that doubt in him. The regret only lasts a moment though before a more powerful swell of emotion takes its place.

You don’t plan on ever telling him no again.

You kiss him, and it’s nothing like what you’re used to (kisses of hunger, kisses of _burning_ that come with a clear destination in mind). It is instead slow. It is careful and exploratory. Gentler than you thought you knew how to be, and filled with so much more love than you know what to do with. Cas’ hand fists in the fabric of your shirt and yours migrates to the back of his neck. You are well and truly holding each other now.

You don’t realize you are crying until Cas pulls back and moves to kiss up the tracks of your tears until he reaches the corner of your eye. You laugh, and from the warmth of his smile you think that might have been the intention.

You try to kiss him properly again, slanting your head to a deeper angle, but Cas gently pulls back. He murmurs something, and silently leads you over to the bed. You lay down together, curled into each other in a jumble of limbs. You don’t think you’ll be able to sleep, but you know Cas is right. In the aftermath of another apocalypse is not the time to take him to bed in any other sense.

There are a hundred difficult conversations in your future, but for now this is enough. Having him in your arms is enough. It is more than you could have hoped for actually, and already you can’t imagine how you ever lived without this.

You didn’t think you’d be able to sleep, but you manage to drift off with Cas’ fingers carding gently through your hair anyway. You dream of heavy wings wrapping you in warmth and sunlight.

* * *

This is what it is to be Dean Winchester: You are covered in scars. Some make a patchwork across your skin, but most live beneath it, tattooed across your heart and your lungs and your ribs. They are stark and textured and sometimes it’s hard to breath around them, but they are also old. They are healed and healing.

The urge to protect that has always been carved into your bones now sits side by side with enochian benedictions, put there because someone wanted to protect you too.

Every night, you hold your angel, and you sleep. You have good dreams and bad ones and you tell him about both. There are no parts of yourself cordoned off or ignored. (The memory of a boy’s hand is no longer treated as radioactive).

You love your angel with every drop of your soul, and you know now that that doesn’t mean loving yourself any less. You know that loving him won’t turn you into a straightforward ghost, and that when you face your father again one day in death, he won’t have power over you anymore.

You are still a weapon, but it is not the whole of you. It is not all you are. It isn’t even the first thing. You are a weapon, but you are in no one’s hands but your own.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the kind of experimental where I sort of just embraced all my worst writing habits, and you know what? I think it came out all right. Let's see if writing this was finally enough to give me some actual closure.


End file.
